


The Totleigh Incident

by toodlepip



Series: Infinite Woosters on Infinite Earths [4]
Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams, Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 17:03:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4674494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toodlepip/pseuds/toodlepip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It Came From Outer Space</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Totleigh Incident

It sometimes seems to me that I have inherited the status of a village elder in the Drones Club. More often than not, messages sent to my flat prove to be calls for help. Accordingly, when the telephone rang with my fork half-way between kipper and lip, I tried not to think of the wasted butter congealing around lukewarm fish; it is a gentleman's duty to rally round when old chums are in the soup. When Jeeves called me to the appliance, I greeted the hapless petitioner with as much grace as one can summon in the uncivilised hours of dawn. 

A muffled voice bleated, "Oh Bertie, you have to help!"

"What?" I said intelligently. "Gussie, is that you?"

"I'm in the hall," he said. 

"Then hadn't we better let you in?" 

"Don't be thilly," he hissed. "In Totleigh Towers! I can't thpeak! They'll hear me! But you have to help, Bertie... It's Madeleine! Madeleine! Oh, Bertie..."

I don't know if you've ever tried to telephonically interrogate a hapless newt fancier when the poor fish is constrained by circumstances to express himself in a muffled whimper, but if you haven't, then try to avoid it. Suggest to the newt-fanciers in your life that they express themselves by means of telegrams. I could barely make out a word. In desperation, I agreed to drive down to the country pile in question and talk to him there without spycraft or subterfuge. 

Upon our arrival at Totleigh Towers, Gussie met us with the tale of his star-crossed love for Madeleine. I soothed him with promises of aid and installed him in a deck-chair, his lips still quivering in piscine dismay. Moments later, Jeeves shimmered onto the Totleign lawn bearing libation and what proved upon inspection to be cucumber sandwiches. 

I piled my plate high and took a bite, just as the skies opened and disgorged a spaceship, which settled on tripod legs half-on and half-off the flagstone pavement. 

A gangway unfolded from the ship’s side, knocking over a large and ornamental statue of the poet Wordsworth, which landed on its side, nose broken away. It goggled at me like a discombobulated Sphinx. I goggled back. 

The alien strode down the ramp, loomed over Jeeves, picked up a sandwich, sniffed it and made a noise like a disappointed tea-kettle. It threw it away and came towards us. Stopping by Gussie’s chair, it pulled out a clipboard and nodded curtly.

“Augustus Fink-Nottle?” it snapped.

Gussie stared at it. It made a peremptory hurry-up gesture. He trembled slightly, and it nodded mockingly back at him until, with no obvious volition, Gussie’s head began to nod as well. 

At this point it said, with no particular emphasis, “You’re a witless inbred schmuck. I just thought you should know that,” upon which it turned on its heel and retreated down the lawn and back to the pavement, up the ramp and into the spaceship. The gangway closed and the tripod legs retracted, leaving the saucer hanging motionless over the lawn for a second too long before drifting away into the distance.

I tried to speak, but choked instead on the morsel of uneaten sandwich. Jeeves dropped the tray and, pulling me out of my seat, pushed firmly at my abdomen. I disgorged the item and joined Wordsworth on the floor, breathing heavily. 

At length, I managed to ask, “What was that?”

“The Heimlich manoeuvre, sir.”

“Not that,” I said, and recalling that the man holding my shoulders was a dream-rabbit and a favourite valet I forebore to add “you silly ass"; instead, I went with “the spaceship!”

“I should say it was a Type 11,” said Jeeves, “with custom running-boards.”

Wordsworth and I went back to the silent goggle tactic.

Jeeves reached in to a pocket and pulled something out, a bakelite-framed thing bearing the legend ‘Don’t panic’. He opened it. It beeped. “As I thought,” he said. “Type 11.”

“Jeeves,” I said, twisting around to look into his eyes. “Would it save you a lot of trouble if I just gave up and went mad now?”

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the prompt: This week, your mission is: Crossovers! Jeeves and Bertie meet another favorite character of yours from a completely different series. The less appropriate, the better.


End file.
